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MRSA Cases Fall Nationwide, Study Finds

The rate of infection with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is decreasing nationwide, a study published last week in The Journal of the American Medical Association suggests.

In recent years, the drug-resistant bacteria have become a danger in hospitals, schools, gyms and other places. “Staph is the leading cause of infections in the community, and these can be hard to handle,” said the report’s senior author, Dr. Clinton K. Murray, an infectious disease specialist at the San Antonio Military Medical Center.

In 2007 MRSA was responsible for 100,000 deaths in the United States, he noted.

Dr. Murray and his colleagues reviewed data on more than nine million recipients of military health care benefits — all ages and both sexes, with 15 percent on active duty — from 2005 through 2010. Both community-onset and hospital-acquired MRSA blood infections declined, the team found — community-acquired infections by about 29 percent over that time, and hospital ones by 20 percent. Skin and wound infections from MRSA dropped by similar percentages, and there were also declines in methicillin-susceptible S. aureus infections, or MSSA.

The finding “suggests that hospital-associated MRSA infections are decreasing without an increase in MSSA filling the niche left behind,” Dr. Murray said.

But the threat has not passed. “We’re not sure why it’s decreasing,” he said. “And there’s still disease out there.”